Man who sold gun in synagogue threat case sentenced to 27 months
Prosecutors say tragedy was averted; case ongoing against 2 other men arrested at Penn Station
The gun recovered in the case of a man who threatened online to shoot up a synagogue. Courtesy of U.S. attorney’s office
By Beth Harpaz February 15, 2024
The man who sold a gun to two men after one of them threatened to “shoot up a synagogue” has been sentenced to 27 months in federal prison, prosecutors said.
Jamil Hakime, 59, was sentenced Feb. 6 in U.S. District Court. He pleaded guilty last year to conspiring to transport a firearm between states.
“Hakime’s actions could have resulted in a monumental tragedy on New York’s Jewish community and could have devastated the lives of many people who were targeted solely for their religious beliefs,” U.S. Attorney Damian Williams said in a statement.
Prosecutors said Hakime drove Christopher Brown and Matthew Mahrer to pick up the Glock pistol and 19 rounds of ammunition after Brown declared his intention on Twitter to “shoot up a synagogue.” Police saw the threat online and contacted Brown by cellphone as the trio drove from New York to Pennsylvania on Nov. 18, 2022.
Prosecutors said Hakime sold the gun to Mahrer and Brown for $650 and taught them how to use it, then drove them back to Manhattan. Police arrested Brown and Mahrer at Penn Station and found the gun in the apartment where Mahrer lives with his parents. Brown was also carrying a bag containing a swastika armband and a hunting knife.
Grandson of a Holocaust survivor
Mahrer is Jewish, the grandson of a Holocaust survivor, Jerry Mahrer, who, at age 13, was the youngest internee at Tittmoning, a Nazi camp in Germany for American prisoners. Jerry’s father, Paul, a renowned Jewish soccer player, was arrested in 1942 and imprisoned at Terezin camp; Jerry, his brother and mother were arrested a year later and eventually sent to the U.S. in a wartime prisoner exchange. Jerry Mahrer died last month at age 94.
Matthew Mahrer’s parents have said that Matthew is autistic, poses no danger to others and was manipulated into accompanying the other men charged in the case. Matthew knew Brown from a residential school they attended and he met Hakime when he was homeless for a period during New York’s pandemic shutdown.
The Mahrers believe Brown dropped the weapon in Matthew’s room at their apartment knowing the police were looking for him. Matthew has been out on bail and participating in programs that provide support services and job training since his arrest. Brown is being held in jail at Rikers Island.
The Mahrers are hopeful the case will be resolved without jail time for Matthew.
But in announcing the sentence, authorities noted that Hakime provided “two men with a firearm enhanced with features enabling it to harm dozens of victims. The men to whom he chose to sell that firearm planned to use it to attack a synagogue.”
NYPD Commissioner Edward A. Caban said the actions of individuals like Hakime “enable others to carry out hate-motivated attacks.”
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.
We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.
If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
